Page 94 of Last Letter Home
Forty-four
In Cockley Market high street, Briony walked up and down, looking at the window displays, but noticing little beyond the repeated message that Valentine’s Day was on its way. The minute hand of the clock above the sign on the old coaching inn only crept, as much as she willed it on. She’d taken a day off and started from London in good time in case of traffic, but the traffic had been easier than expected and parking spaces plentiful. There was no market in Cockley on a Wednesday, that must be the explanation. The result was she had a whole thirty minutes to kill. Opposite the inn, she came to the café where she’d once seen Aruna. There was a table free in the window with a good vantage point, so she pushed open the door, thinking she’d warm herself up with a coffee.
As she lingered over a cappuccino, she thought again of what had brought her here, how Derek Jenkins had identified the man in the photograph whom she knew to be her grandfather as Paul Hartmann, not Harry Andrews at all. Did that mean that the drunken man at the station was Harry? Paul, Harry and Ivor – those were the names on the back of the photograph, so if ‘Harry’ was in fact Paul, was ‘Paul’ Harry? She and Derek discussed this for some time, and an idea came to her that made her prickle all over. How on earth could she prove it?
When she’d arrived back at her flat that afternoon, she tried some aimless searching on the internet that turned up nothing, before ringing her father’s landline, then his mobile, and finally her stepmother’s. No answer from any of them, which was frustrating. This didn’t stop her jumping into the car and driving down to Birchmere, her eyes dazzled by a most beautiful sunset. She found the house shrouded in gloom and rang the bell. Only the tabby cat appeared and rubbed itself against her legs as she waited on the doorstep.
Her phone rang. ‘Lavender? I’m in Birchmere. Where are you?’
Lavender was irritatingly vague. They were waiting somewhere for an appointment, Briony gleaned that much. Yes, of course it was all right for her to let herself in. She knew where the spare key was, didn’t she? Did she mind very much feeding the cat?
She found the key under its pot, and when she gained access she filled the cat’s bowl with kibble, then raced upstairs to her old room and dragged open the drawer under the bed. ‘Jean’s schoolbooks.’ That was the only box she hadn’t searched.
She worked quickly but carefully, flicking through the exercise books she took out and stacking them to one side. As the box grew emptier, her spirits lowered. With the final book in her hand, she examined the few items left at the bottom, but there were no documents about her mother or grandparents at all, no old passports or birth or wedding certificates, only a thin hand-made black evening bag decorated with jet beads. She sat back on her heels and brushed back a lock of hair, disappointed. Who was her grandmother? She’d be able to check, of course, in the public records, if she could find out her full name and dates, but everybody called her Molly. She picked up the evening bag. Its jet beads sparkled. Rather lovely, she thought, unbuttoning it. There was something inside, a comb, a handkerchief and a piece of soft thick card, with a pretty design, decorated with flowers and little songbirds, one holding a red leaf in the shape of a heart. A Valentine’s card, then. She opened it and gave a sharp intake of breath. Inside, written in thick black pen, in handwriting she recognized, were the words, My dearest Sarah, Forever meine Liebchen.
As she finished her coffee, Briony’s attention was caught by the arrival of a sleek grey Jaguar car. As she watched, it slowed, then turned and swept under the arch of the coaching inn past a sign that read, Customers car park. On some instinct she rose, slipped on her jacket, left coins for her coffee and went out, crossing the street and entering the inn by its heavy, iron-studded front door. Inside, she found herself in a comfortable old-fashioned lounge bar that smelled richly of beer and gravy and old wood. It was empty apart from a group of red-faced old men in identical navy blazers, crests on the pockets, and a pair of mature, beautifully groomed ladies who were poring over lunch menus at a table in the window. At the bar, a tall, thickset man in a charcoal-coloured overcoat was ordering a drink. When he turned and regarded her questioningly, she felt a little shock of recognition. Clean-shaven, short dark hair with a touch of grey, smoothed back over his head, this was the man she’d spotted with Aruna. He was also, she realized, the man she was here to meet – Greg’s father, Tom Richards.
‘Miss Wood. Briony.’ He stumbled over the name.
‘Yes.’ She moved towards him and held out her hand. For a moment he hesitated, then he shook it, his hooded eyes not meeting her gaze.
‘I’m glad to meet you at last,’ she said in as level a voice as she could muster. ‘We have a good deal to talk about.’
And at last he looked directly at her. ‘What’ll you have to drink?’ was all he said.
Tom Richards could pass for sixty, she thought as she studied him while he ate, though she knew he must be ten years beyond that. He was a whisky and soda man, taller and more solid than his son, but there was that same tightness about his moulded mouth, a wariness in his eyes. A man of few words and fixed opinions, he was not what her father would call clubbable. At some point in his life he’d learned to be suspicious, grudging even.
After he’d bought their drinks, they’d been ushered to a comfortable corner of the quiet, sun-filled, thick-carpeted, wood-panelled restaurant beyond the lounge bar. A carvery counter sizzled and steamed along one wall where chefs plated for them glistening roast meat and potatoes, fluffy Yorkshire pudding and brightly coloured vegetables, all topped with rich brown gravy.
‘Just right for a winter’s day,’ remarked Tom Richards as he spread his napkin and tucked in. He’d restricted his remarks so far to the business of the food. Briony, who was nervous and didn’t really want hers now that it was in front of her, picked up her knife and fork and tried a small mouthful of meat. The salty tenderness burst upon her palate and suddenly she was hungry. She sliced another piece, dipped it in the gravy and ate that, too. All the way here she’d thought about what to ask this man, and now that they were companionably eating she couldn’t think of how to break the silence. It was Greg who had brokered the meeting, but she’d told him firmly that she didn’t want him there himself. They’d both gang up on her, she’d believed, and she refused to be bullied any more. She wanted the truth and sensed she’d be more likely to get it out of Mr Richards if it was just the two of them together.
Tom Richards flagged down a passing waitress. ‘Another of these,’ he said curtly, pointing to his empty glass.
Briony, her mouth full, shook her head at the waitress’s enquiry.
It was only after his second whisky had been served and drunk and he’d eaten every morsel on his plate that Tom Richards slid his knife and fork together, tossed his napkin on the table, then sat back in his chair to regard her properly, as though noticing her for the first time.
‘That’s better,’ he said and cleared his throat.
Briony laid down her cutlery and pushed her half-finished meal from her. ‘Mr Richards,’ she said, running out of patience. ‘Tom.’ They were related, after all.
He met her eye with a shrewd gaze. ‘You don’t look a bit like my mother. I thought you would. You are her grand-niece after all. Which makes us cousins.’
‘And you knew all along.’
‘No. Greg only told me that you’d come asking questions, that you write books about the war. I had no idea of a family connection. It’s come as much of a shock to me as I imagine it is to you. So now you know. My father, apparently, was a bully and a coward, maybe a murderer, too. But I saw little of that. My parents were very happy together, and my mother and me, we were devastated when he died. Only sixty. That’s young now.’
‘That would have been . . .’
‘Nineteen seventy-three. I was twenty-five. It was a great blow to my mother. She lived into her eighties, doted on me and her grandson, you know. Greg and she were very close, like she and I had been. Now, I know what you’re going to ask me.’
Briony raised a quizzical eyebrow.
‘How I learned the allegations about my dad. It was after both his parents had died. His mother, Margo, lived till ninety, you know, died in 1980 when I was in my mid-thirties and Greg was a boy of three or four. I was left with the job of clearing out Westbury House, where Greg lives now. There were some letters I read that my dad had sent home from the war, then I found a newspaper cutting. None of it squared with anything I’d been told and it ate away at me. I didn’t like to trouble my mother with it, but in the end I did and she told me how Dad had been unfairly accused and what a bastard, forgive my French, Paul Hartmann had been.’
‘And you believed this version?’
‘In all honesty, I felt hers might not be the only viewpoint. I had a lot of time for my dad, but he had a side to him that was hard as nails. Of course, she swore me to secrecy. She wanted me to destroy the evidence I’d found, but I’m afraid that I didn’t. I became a bit obsessed by it. After she died, I went out to Tuana to poke about, though I stayed quiet about who I was. There are long memories there and I learned enough to realize that whatever the truth was Dad hadn’t told Mum all of it. But I kept my promise to her. I didn’t tell a soul, not even Greg. Until you came along trying to find things out. Then I had to. I needed Greg on my side.’
